Sponsored Rider Update: Sarah Gadd

We had a great day out eventing on Monday with Roxie, despite the weather not being that nice to us!

We were at Tweseldown and it was mine and Roxie’s first attempt at Intermediate level and only her second run of the season, so I was a little nervous if i’m honest! Thankfully it stopped raining just before we got there so on arrival I headed off to walk the XC course. Fence 1 a lovely inviting flower, ‘this looks fine’ I thought…….then there was fence 2, a nice filled in oxer type fence which was just below my shoulder in height and wider than my arm span! I did contemplate turning round and heading home at this point! As I continued to walk the course it got bigger and more technical, but I was getting extremely excited about cracking on with it and giving it a go. I knew to get to have a crack at the XC we had to get round the SJ, which has always been our nemesis and, as usual at Tweseldown, the SJ was a very big track!

Anyway before either jumping discipline we had to do our dressage and as it was only Roxie’s second time out this season she was rather excited to say the least! She did a good test but was slightly tense and it is a test I’ve done many times before so she knows what movement is up next…..and they say horses aren’t clever!?! After our dressage ,when I went to learn the SJ course, I looked at the scores of my arena and they ranged from 27 to 55 so was hoping for somewhere in the middles! We scored 40.9 which isn’t a great score but I know what needs to be worked on for next time.

The SJ course was testing with very few clears and looking at the scores last night only 4 in my arena jumped clear showing how thought the track was! I was determined to jump a good round as couldn’t wait to get out on the XC! It was by far the biggest track I’ve ever jumped on Roxie and she was SUPER! We did pick up 4 penalties at the first part of the triple, which was off a tight turn where many horses were slipping, so to ensure she didn’t slip my approach was too steady! But I was chuffed to bits with our round as it felt the best round I’ve ridden on Roxie in a long time.

So with a great SJ round behind us, it was now all to play for and I couldn’t wait to get out and attack the XC course! I was a little anxious, as she was such a handful at South of England in April, but she proved me right and was more than ready for the step up to intermediate level as she flew round the course making it feel the BE100 track! We did pick up 20 penalties at fence 17a, a skinny brush with a sharp right turn on landing to fence 17b – which was upright racing rails. One thing I hate with a passion are uprights on a XC course! I think because of this I fiddled a bit too much before the skinny, focusing on the upright rails and Roxie just wasn’t quite sure where I wanted her to go! I was very annoyed with myself as it was completely rider error as she was jumping brilliantly all the way round. If i’m honest, I was really quite annoyed with myself when I found out without the XC penalties we would have won! Oh well, there’s always next time.

We did finish 14th in my section so a very respectable result considering it was our first run at this level! I am so so pleased with how it all went!

Best regards,

Sarah

Follow Sarah on twitter @SarahGadd

Sponsored Rider Update: Sarah Gadd

“I hope you had a lovely Easter break and the weather is finally looking more like spring weather 🙂

Just to keep you updated, we were out SJing last Thursday with Roxie and Milli at Felbridge. I’m now an eventer-turned-showjumper with so many events being cancelled! I entered the Discovery class on Milli and she jumped really well. She is still jumping SO big over every fence, I think being young she is miss-judging the height slightly and doesn’t want to touch a pole but now she is jumping slightly bigger tracks she is having trouble jumping the bigger spreads and came down on the back rail of a big spread yesterday which resulted in her loosing confidence and stopping at the next, which unfortunately I went on to jump myself!! Not good!

Although, smashing my face and nearly breaking my nose obviously knocked some sense into me as I rode the best round i’ve ever jumped on Roxie and had she been registered with BS and not jumping on a ticket she would have finished 2nd in the next class 🙂 Thankfully I wasn’t too bruised up the following day…..I was worried I would like like i’d been beaten up or something though I have to say!! 

I would just like to let you know I am AMAZED at how well the Global Herbs StrongBone supplement has worked on Roxie!! She isn’t on any form of joint supplement and doesn’t feel like she needs it at all. The StrongBone has helped strengthen her hocks so so much that she now has a lot more confidence in herself, that she can get slightly closer to the fences and has the power to push off the floor. Paul, from Ultimate Images was there and he said it was the best round he has seen her jump as well, so thank you for once again making a SUPERB supplement 🙂

 

Strongbone

For normal strong conformation – especially hock joints

Many horse owners use limestone flower but StrongBone is much more effective. This can be used in any horse as the best possible form of calcium. In the young it ensures proper development of the legs and in older animals it can be used routinely to ensure that the joints remain strong, flexible and sound. In adult horses it is particularly invaluable for maintain hocks in perfect condition.

• At a low level as a routine supplement to ensure strong normal joints
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• As a food supplement when there has been any damage to bones
• To help with normal milk production in mares

Price Details

• 1kg – £16.50

• 5kg – £73.95

Directions for use

Feed 2 x 25ml (blue scoops) twice daily for an average sized horse over a period of 2-3 months. Maintenance can then be at 1-2 scoops daily indefinitely.

Sponsored rider update: Sarah Gadd

Read below what our brilliant sponsored rider, Sarah Gadd, has been up to.

“Just wanted to give you a quick update on how everything is this end before Christmas and the New Year celebrations begin. We haven’t been out competing much over the last few weeks because of the weather but we have still been doing lots of hacking and training when the school isn’t frozen!

I am also incredibly busy coaching and riding clients horses at the moment which is good. Last weekend I went to a British Dressage training session with Leanne Wall. I took Roxie and got some really good work out of her and Leanne has given us plenty to work on before the next session in January. I was very pleased when she said that Roxie has the potential and is more than capable of going advanced / 4* but I’ve just got to be braver and ask more of her so with our training programme changed slightly we are working harder than ever getting ready for the start of the season in a few months time.

Milli is working very well and is STILL growing! She’s going to be enormous by the time she stops growing! She had her first set of back shoes on the other day so is now very grown up like Roxie! We are next out competing on the 30th December at a dressage competition and have our first jumping lesson booked for the 28th December which no doubt they will find incredibly exciting as they have only been jumped a few times at home since coming back into work after their holidays!

The video and pictures are from our training session with Leanne and I have left the sound in the video as people have previously commented on little things they have learnt from watching and listening to my training videos 🙂

I hope you have a very merry Christmas and a happy new year 🙂

Many thanks for the support from Global Herbs during 2012 and lets look forward to what will hopefully be a very successful 2013!

Sarah

Sponsored rider update: Sarah Gadd

Check out the latest update from one of our fantastic sponsored riders, Sarah Gadd. Photo Credit: Ultimate Images

“Just wanted to give you a quick results update after a very busy weekend at Firle Place International Horse Trials with both horses competing. It was my last chance to try and qualify for the Lycetts Young Horse Championships with Milli and although we didn’t qualify I am so pleased with how she has gone this year considering her young age.

We got a dressage of 31.5 and then jumped a super clear SJ, just as the rain started. By the time we changed clothes and boots it was chucking it down! Milli didn’t seem to mind and she jumped a great round, going straight over all the difficult fences and jumping into the water, which s something she hasn’t done before! However we were caught out a fence 9, a simple log fence with a tight turn on landing as after the tight turn there was a field full of black and brown cows which Milli thought were obviously going to eat her! Bless her.

Although I am disappointed that we didn’t qualify this year, I am so pleased with how well she has evented, especially as she is my first home bred event horse that I have produced from scratch myself! Roll on 2013……….

I had hoped to get Roxie entered into the 1* at Firle but the closed the 1* entries early resulting in there only being spaces left in the Novice sections. Roxie travelled to the event really well, and was much more settled when we arrived and warmed up for the dressage really well. She continued to stay calm and performed a lovely test to score 34….5th after dressage in a big arena! GREAT 🙂

She then jumped a super round SJ, partly due to the purchase of a new SJ saddle purchased last week. She stayed in a lovely rhythm all the way around and all the grid work exercises I have been doing over verticals has made her much neater over the fences. Unfortunately we finished with 8 faults as she didn’t jump wide enough of fence 10a, taking the back rail down and the rushing slightly so tapping 10c as well…..how annoying! A lovely round turned into 8 faults at the last fence!

Anyway, now for the XC and after her being slightly too enthusiastic at Chilham I decided I would let her run at her own speed but not push her too fast as she tends to get a big adrenaline rush and not listen then! She was very polite and made the course feel easy and we took all the direct routes everywhere.

When I went to the score board I saw we got 6 time faults for going too fast…..it didn’t feel fast but where she was very polite and didn’t waste any time preparing for the fences as opposed to her fighting with me at previous events!  I think sorting her hormones out with the FriskyMare plus has worked amazing results and I can’t thank Global Herbs enough for making such a fantastic supplement!

This was a great run for both horses and Roxie and I are definitely ready to take the LEAP up to Intermediate level…..how exciting! We are out net weekend at Goring Heath for the Intermediate Novice so a last chance to practice Intermediate dressage and SJ before we make our Intermediate debut at South of England in a few weeks time :)”

Follow Sarah on Twitter @sarahgadd

Sponsored Rider: Sarah Gadd Update…

Sarah Gadd is one of our brilliant sponsored riders and a Global Herbs fanatic! She had fantastic results with Sarc-Ex when she fed it to her ex-racehorse Still Learning (Roxie) and she now uses many of our products to keep her three Eventers in top shape.

All her horses are fed GlobalVite for all round vitamin and mineral support and Roxie, her top horse, is also fed FriskyMare Plus and MSM. Sarah recently took her to a 2* and 3* Training Clinic. Keep reading to see how she got on and for more info on how her horses benefit from Global Herbs.

“We had a great day at Knowle Farm on Sunday for the 2* and 3* Training Clinic with Gill Watson! Both Roxie and I learnt lots and also met some great people.

We started off the day meeting in the coffee room all stood round the fire to keep warm. We had a breif talk before going and tacking up, ready for our first lesson, which was Dressage. We warmed up and worked on some 2* and 3* movements before running through the 2* A Dressage test, which was judged by Gill and the other people that weren’t riding. When I had to judge Hannah’s test with Roweena it made me realise how quick the Dressage judges have to think as each movement / mark comes up so quickly!

Once we had all ridden we went and sat back around the fire to defrost and have a bite to eat. Whilst we had some lunch we watched our tests back on the TV after Alice had very kindly videoed them all for us. Gill went through our marks whilst we were watching the tests so it was very interesting hearing from Gill what the judges are really looking for in each of the movements. We all took down many notes whilst listening too! After we had watched our videos we had a talk with Robin Balfour on FEI rules. This was very interesting and we all realised that we didn’t know as many as we proably should and the British Eventing rules are quite different to the FEI Eventing rules…..some bedtime reading for me then!

After lunch we went and tacked up again to begin our Show Jumping lesson. Before we started jumping we did lots of work on getting them really listening to the riders aids. To do this we worked them on serpentines in trot and canter, each time we crossed the centre line we changed the pace, either through walk, trot or by doing a flying change. This really helped get Roxie nice and supple and listening to me. During our Show Jumping lesson we worked on related distances, some slightly short distances, some slightly longer distances and some on the correct striding. To finish off we linked them all together as a small course and had to react very quickly on landing after each fence making sure we had the correct canter needed for the next line of jumps.

We have lots coming up in the near future so keep checking back for regualr updates on what’s going on at Sarah Gadd Eventing.

So, until next time,
X”

Check out some more pictures from Sarah Gadd Eventing below.

Diamond Mill (Milli) is Sarah’s 4 year old home bred and is a very exciting prospect. She is now starting to go out competing and Sarah has started feeding her Muscle Up to help support her development and build top line. We are looking forward to bringing you ‘Before and After’ pictures to show you just how well it works.

Dress Sense (Sabrina) is also an ex-racer, and started affiliated Eventing last year. She benefits hugely from SuperCalm not only when being ridden, but also on the yard and in the field. A relaxed and happy horse will perform better!